


The Smiler

by buddenbrooks



Category: ASTRO (Band), VIXX
Genre: Crack, Gen, Recreational Drug Use, With Apologies to Astro Fans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-15 00:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11219646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buddenbrooks/pseuds/buddenbrooks
Summary: Set in the Bar and Grill AU.So I have this headcanon that Hakyeon and Eunwoo live together in the cleanest, healthiest flat share ever known, and Jaehwan is a tweaked trash-lord who is terrified of how clean Eunwoo is, and somehow they just keep running into each other.This is completely ridiculous but I needed to cheer myself up somehow.(Also I know Eunwoo's real name is not Eunwoo but I will always think of him as Eunwoo so I just used that.)





	1. One

Jaehwan hates going to Hakyeon's place.

It's a weird place to hate so much. He should love it: it's clean, and Hakyeon always has food even if it's not that appetising (granola bars and rice cakes are not Jaehwan's idea of a decent snack) and he has a really good music system, and a fat fluffy cat who loves being fussed over. Jaehwan isn't allowed to smoke in there, but that's not the issue. The issue is the people Haykeon lives with. Well, one person in particular.

"You are being totally irrational, Jaehwan," Haykeon tells him as they're setting up the bar together. "If you would just come over for dinner one time, you'd see there's nothing weird about him."

"Come over for dinner? No way, you'd probably make me wear a fuckin' tuxedo and use like, six different kinds of cutlery."

"I would appreciate it if you at least put some trousers on and ate at the table, yes."

"Anyway, like fuck am I coming over to stare at the Stepford Boy for three hours. No. Hakyeon, he's fuckin' weird and don't say I didn't tell you when the bodies start showing up under the floorboards."

"You're being ridiculous."

"That's what they all say afterwards. 'Nothing ever seemed strange about him. He was such a nice man.' Then they're carved up into bitesized pieces and hidden around the local car park. It's always the quiet ones, dude."  
  
Hakyeon straightens out a bar mat and gives Jaehwan a pointed look. "Then I don't need to worry about you turning into a serial killer, because you never shut up."

 

The first time Jaehwan met Cha Eunwoo, he got violently sick the day afterwards. The two events are definitely connected, however hard Hakyeon tries to blame his illness on the kebabs he got at 6am on the way home from the club.

"I eat those kebabs all the time, and I never get sick."

"How much speed had you taken?"

"I take that much speed all the time and I never get sick. It was your weird friend, I swear to God."

The meeting is a brief one. Hakyeon had suggested Jaehwan drop by and they walk to work together; they had a big name DJ playing the club that night and were expecting to get slammed, and Hakyeon thought a brisk walk would get them off to a good start. Jaehwan doesn't think it will; for that, he's relying on the baggy of crushed up adderall he's got tucked into his wallet, but Hakyeon doesn't need to know about that.

Anyway, he knows it's really because Hakyeon wants to show off his new flat. He'd moved a few weeks ago, into a lovely big place on the seventh floor, airy with white walls and white flooring. He's been farting on about it at work nonstop: how light and spacious it feels, how good the kitchen is, how awesome his new flat mates are.

"Careful hyung, we might start thinking you like them more than us," Hyuk said, and Hakyeon clucked his tongue and made a comment about how at least his flatmates know how to clean up after themselves.

So at last Jaehwan had given into the increasingly heavy hints and dropped round to see the wonder pad for himself. Hakyeon has this beautiful innocent belief that if he exposes Jaehwan to his own clean lifestyle enough, it might start to transfer. It only makes Jaehwan more determined to never live in what is essentially a hospital, but Hakyeon doesn't need to know that.

He toes off his shoes at the door, conscious of the fresh whiteness of the floor. Immediately this fat fuzzy thing appears and starts rubbing itself against his legs, purring like a power drill.

"This is Bomi," Hakyeon says, bending down to pick the cat up. He cuddles her close, and it looks so much like a magazine advert that Jaehwan feels a bit sick. Hakyeon's lifestyle works for him; he's offensively glowing. Jaehwan considers suggesting he might be pregnant, but he's been on the receiving end of one of Hakyeon's neck chops before. "Come take a look around."

The doctor's surgery entrance leads through into more hospital looking rooms. Hakyeon is right, it is spacious and airy and all of those other bullshit estate agent terms, but Jaehwan imagines his faithful gravity bong sitting in the sink and decides he could never live here. It's just so clean. Jaehwan's already starting to feel itchy when he sees the cleanest thing of all sitting at the dining table.

"Oh, this is one of my house mates, Eunwoo. Eunwoo, this is Jaehwan, we work together."

The dude sitting at the table has the cleanest, most neatly kept hands Jaehwan has ever seen. He's eating rice out of a white ceramic bowl, with a glass of orange juice next to him. He has dark, well brushed hair and immaculate skin, and Jaehwan feels like a complete trash heap next to him. He even makes Hakyeon look grubby. He looks up and smiles and Jaehwan cannot spot a single flaw on his face. It's pretty sickening.

"Nice to meet you Jaehwan! Welcome to our flat. By the way," he says to Hakyeon, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "There's this great recipe in here for vegan chocolate cake, we should try it out!"

Jaehwan only notices he's starting backing away when Hakyeon grabs his arm. "Do you want a drink before we go? Water, orange juice?"

He can't stop staring at Eunwoo, and Eunwoo hasn't stopped smiling. "There's some kombucha in the fridge if you like," he suggests. Jaehwan swallows hard.

"No - nah, we should be, we should be going dude. Walking always takes longer than you think it will."

Eunwoo leans his head to one side slightly, like he's studying Jaehwan, measuring him up. He still hasn't stopped smiling. The white walls sort of ripple unpleasantly, and Jaehwan's sure it's nothing to do with the bump he did before he left the house.

"Alright, if you're suddenly so invested in getting to work on time. I'll get my coat."

"Meet you outside," Jaehwan blurts, and - he's not proud of it - he bolts.

"What's the matter with you?" Hakyeon asks when he catches up with him. Jaehwan's power-smoking a cigarette, demolishing it in five or six deep drags.

"How can you live in a place like that dude? It's so - " He thinks of Eunwoo, smiling at him with his perfect teeth and his perfect nails, and he shudders. "So clean."

"Only you would think that's a problem," Hakyeon says, and they bicker the whole way into work. The shift is a nightmare: Hongbin's just got dumped by some chick and sulks the whole night, their big name DJ turns up three hours late and off his face on E which means they have to pretty much tie Wonshik up to stop him from 'saving the day' and taking over the decks himself, and Jaehwan gets four pornstar martinis tipped over him when he cuts off a group of girls and they shove everything off the bar top as revenge.

He and Taekwoon pick up beers at the late night store and pound them on their walk home, and they also pick up their favourite greasy kebab. Jaehwan wakes up an hour after he went to sleep and spends the morning spewing his guts out. For some reason, Eunwoo's smiling face is haunting him.

 

 

The next time they meet, it's a little easier but it's still enough to unsettle Jaehwan for the whole day. It's on his turf, at least; Haykeon's dropped by on his way to somewhere else (there isn't enough speed in the world to keep up with Hakyeon's schedule) to give Jaehwan a book he'd promised, although Jaehwan knows it's really because Hakyeon feels the need to come by and spy on him every so often, to satisfy himself that there's no serious health code violations in the house.

Jaehwan's pretty confident he'll pass inspection this time. The bins need taking out but he's going to blame that on Wonshik, who can usually be bullied into doing it. Hakyeon lets himself in with the key he insisted on having cut - "because I know your lifestyle, Jaehwan, and if you're passed out in there I need to be able to get in so the ambulance can get you out" - and Jaehwan's ears lazily prick up from where he's cocooned on the sofa.

"Shall I take my shoes off?" he hears.

"Um. Better not," Hakyeon replies, and Jaehwan's eyebrows furrow down. A moment later Hakyeon appears in the doorway, and next to him, in a blindingly white and impossibly unwrinkled shirt, is Eunwoo.

Jaehwan sits up a little straighter, suddenly painfully conscious that he's only wearing boxers and an over-sized novelty t-shirt his grandma brought him back from a cruise, with ketchup stains down the front. He moves the bowl of chicken nuggets off his stomach and pulls himself upright. He is much, much too stoned for this.

Hakyeon notes his state and sighs, but he's too used to this to say anything. It's Eunwoo's reaction Jaehwan is waiting for but nothing comes. He stands there on the filthy carpet, clearly able to see the takeaway containers littered under the sofa, and the open stash box with a fresh delivery of pot half-wrapped in clingfilm, and probably one of Jaehwan's balls hanging out of the leg of his boxers. He can see all of this and yet he stands there smiling as if he were in a sun-light meadow surrounded by daffodils.

He looks like the lead of a romantic drama show, and he's standing in Jaehwan's odious living room, smiling. Something is not right.

"Hello Jaehwan, nice to see you again," he says. Jaehwan blinks a few times and swallows the bite of chicken nugget in his mouth.

"Hi," he says, and then, aware of Hakyeon's unimpressed look, and with no idea of what to say, he gestures to the bong at his feet. "Uh, want some?"

Jaehwan's pet bong is made out of an old two litre drinks bottle and a plastic pitcher. It is the only health code violation Hakyeon has had to allow in the house, because Jaehwan point blank refuses to get rid of it. They agreed on a compromise at last and moved it out of the sink, but Jaehwan has not changed the water in it since. It is fetid. It stinks. It's probably the most filthy thing Eunwoo has ever laid eyes on.

He doesn't turn a hair. His smile does not falter. "No thank you," he says. "But please carry on, don't mind me."

Jaehwan's blood runs cold. He picks up his old faithful and takes a huge rip until his vision goes blurry and he can't see Eunwoo any more.

 

"I'm telling you dude, something's not right about him. No one should be that clean. And he smiles, like, all the time, I mean - don't you think that's weird?"

Hakyeon loops the rainbow streamers neatly around a speaker and throws the rest down to Hyuk. "How is it weird to be polite and happy?"

"It's not physically possible to be that happy all the time. Have you considered he might be an android? Have you ever seen him get wet? Do sparks come off him sometimes?"

Hakyeon climbs down from the top of the bar and watches Hyuk arrange the rest of the streamers above him, hooking them onto the wire partions in front of the glass shelves. "I'm not discussing this any more, Jaehwan. You're being ridiculous."

"Your stupid surgical looking flat is ridiculous," Jaehwan grumbles, and then scoots before Hakyeon can reach over and slap him.

 

  
It becomes routine. He can't escape Eunwoo. Everywhere, always when Jaehwan's at his worst, that pretty, perfectly scrubbed face will appear in his line of sight, always with an angelic smile and a sincere greeting: "Jaehwan! It's lovely to see you again! How are you?" The dude is stalking him, Jaehwan's sure of it. Behind that flawless face he's a sicko, getting his kicks by comparing himself to Jaehwan at his very worst.

He's at Winner's Coffee after an all-nighter, with a ten hour shift staring him in the face, very conscious of his empty stomach and racing heart. He probably doesn't need the triple shot americano he's just bought; he knows the barista saw how badly his hands were shaking and considered not serving him, but at least he'd tried to do something Hakyeon might be proud of: he'd got the blueberry and bran muffin, instead of the chocolate one. He crumbles it into pieces without realising it while he sucks down his coffee, then sits back in the armchair and closes his eyes for thirty seconds.

"Oh, hello Jaehwan!" he hears, and when he forces his eyelids apart there's Eunwoo, holding a pink and red smoothie in a plastic cup and waving. Jaehwan is so disorientated and exhausted that he forgets to do anything apart from stare back in disbelief. Eunwoo smiles and waves again and then goes to sit at a table with a tall, pink-cheeked boy.

Jaehwan shuts his eyes and goes to sleep until Dongwoo comes over and tells him to leave. Eunwoo waves again as he heads out, and Jaehwan pulls up his hood and pretends he didn't see.

Another time he's gone to a film with Hongbin, except the film is shitty and he falls asleep on Hongbin's shoulder half an hour in. Hongbin's just going to see it so he can look like a cultured swine for this chick he's courting. She wears glasses and works in a bookshop, and Hongbin thinks that must mean she's clever.

"She'll be too clever to fall for your lame trick of watching a film you don't understand to impress her," Jaehwan had said, and Hongbin punched him in the arm and said he'd buy a round of shots that evening, and Jaehwan didn't have any plans so he went. He likes napping in cinemas anyway.

He wakes up with the credits rolling and a pissed off looking Hongbin dabbing his shoulder with a napkin. "Gross, asshole, you dribbled on me."

Jaehwan yawns and stretches out. It was a good nap. Then he hears it, right in his left ear. "Oh, hello Jaehwan!"

He jerks, catching Hongbin's hand and making him clock himself in the face. Ignoring the furious curse words, he turns round and there he is: smiling away, with some other dude at his side, who is also incredibly clean looking and very small.

"Were you a bit sleepy?" Eunwoo says. "Never mind. It was a good film though. Have a nice evening!" And he smiles and waves and slides out of the row of seats, disappearing into the crush of people leaving the cinema.

"Was he watching me sleep that whole time?" Jaehwan says.

"I don't know, I was watching the film, asshole. Now can you move, I think you've made me give myself a nosebleed." Hongbin complains about his nose and his damp shoulder for the rest of the afternoon, and of course uses it as an excuse not to buy the promised shots. Jaehwan is weirded out enough that he doesn't even really care.

 

  
"He's watching me Hakyeon, I'm telling you. He wants my liver or something."

"Your liver is barely any use to you, Jaehwan, why would anyone else want it?" Hakyeon gestures at the rest of the delivery and makes a 'get on with it' movement with his eyebrows, which Jaehwan is too well trained to ignore. He keeps talking even as he hefts two cases of beers up and starts plodding to the stock room.

"I swear to God, dude, he was right behind me the entire time and he didn't say anything. He wanted me to know he'd been there the whole time. He was trying to freak me out. He's playing some kind of fuckin' game and I'm not having it."

"And what are you intending to do, Jaehwan? Or maybe you think I should talk to him? 'Excuse me Eunwoo, my amphetamine-addled colleague thinks you have some fiendish plan to steal his organs, could you let me know if this is true or not?'"

"It's touching to see the concern you have for your staff."

"My concern is that you've ingested so many recreational drugs that it's starting to affect your basic perception of reality."

"Maybe you just wanna bang him," Taekwoon suddenly suggests. Jaehwan drops a case of soda water on his toes and yelps.

"The fuck, dude?"

Taekwoon, the fucker, is smirking slyly. "You keep talking about him. You keep mentioning how he's pretty and perfect and always smiling. Maybe you just wanna fuck him. And you know he's out of your league. Because you're trash."

Hakyeon steps between the two of them when Jaehwan threatens to turn a tequila bottle into an offensive weapon, and from then on, discussion of Eunwoo is banned from work.

 

  
So, naturally, Jaehwan brings it up at home.

"I mean, I watched this documentary on stem cells last night, man, maybe that's it. Maybe that's how he stays looking like that. He wants my fuckin' stem cells to regenerate his demon form. Dude, are you listening to me?"

Taekwoon, with his chin sunk onto his chest, exhales a massive cloud of grey smoke. "No."

"Well listen, you fucker, I'm serious. I could be at serious risk. He could be like - who was that countess who used to bathe in the blood of her servants? God, maybe he's a vampire." Jaehwan pulls his feet up onto the sofa and loops his arms around his knees. He imagines himself lying in that perfect white flat, bleeding out across the linoleum. He imagines Eunwoo standing over him, still smiling, with his perfect white teeth growing out into fangs. Haykeon would be pissed about the mess, that's for sure. "Why me though? Why would he want me when he lives with Hakyeon?"

"Maybe he likes junk food."

Jaehwan falls into contemplation. "Dude. Could be. Speaking of, do you want some chips?"

It's only when he's turned on the oven and forgotten about it for two hours and they've ripped their way through another three bowls that Jaehwan finds out they don't actually have any chips. Or chicken nuggets, or anything else. The munchies are starting to bubble up in his belly, angry and demanding, and there is no food in the house except for a lump of slightly stale cheese which Taekwoon has already claimed.

"This is bullshit. Let's get take out."

"Ugh. I can't afford take out dude. Where's Wonshik, make him go to the shop for us."

"Not happening. He's at the gym."

Jaehwan makes a noise of deep disgust at his inconsiderate friend and his unhealthy obsession with exercise. How he has managed to surround himself with people who eat vegan chocolate cake and go to the gym and date girls who work in bookshops, he has no idea. At least he has Taekwoon. Together, they make up one person just about sober enough to go to the shop and buy some food. And toilet paper, because Jaehwan's been wiping his ass with napkins he's purloined from GOT7's every time he gets a burger.

They're in the frozen food aisle - hoods up, trying to find the chips, Taekwoon leaning on Jaehwan so that they both lurch to the side and Jaehwan's in serious danger of falling into the fridge - and he hears it. At first he thinks it's a stoned hallucination. Then he turns around.

"Oh, hello Jaehwan!"

Eunwoo's with that tiny boy again, and another equally tiny dude, and the three of them look like an advertisement for moisturiser. How it's possible for three people to all be so fresh faced at the same time, Jaehwan has no idea. There's supposed to be an ugly one in any group of friends, that's just how it works. These three even have outfits that co-ordinate. They each have a canvas shopping bag on their arm, and are consulting a list Eunwoo is holding.

Of course they have a shopping list.

"Who's that?" Taekwoon mumbles, and then he squints a bit and it must click. "Oh."

Eunwoo comes up, extending a hand which Jaehwan reluctantly takes. "Nice to see you again! So funny how we keep running into each other, isn't it? This is Myungjun and Jinwoo, they live with me and Hakyeon as well." He drops Jaehwan's hand and looks at Taekwoon expectantly.

"Uh. Taekwoon. Same. I mean. He lives with me too." Jaehwan tries to subtly back up, not just because it's disturbing being this close to these people, but also because he's aware he must reek of pot and probably a bit of body odour too. Eunwoo's friends, at least, are not as smiley as him. The blond one, Jinwoo, is looking Jaehwan up and down with distinctly suspicious expression. The other one is looking in his shopping basket, and appears slightly horrified. Jaehwan's basket has ten packets of instant ramen, a six pack of beer, a frozen pizza and a fourpack of value toilet roll.

Jaehwan doesn't want to look at Eunwoo's basket. He knows what he'll see already.

"So. Uh. Nice to see you. We've gotta - I mean, you probably wanna get on so I'll, we'll just." Taekwoon jabs Jaehwan in the small of his back, in a way which is definitely code for, 'stop acting sketchy, you'll get us busted'.

"You really shouldn't eat that ramen," Myungjun says, his eyes all wide and serious like he's genuinely concerned for Jaehwan's welfare. "It's got all sorts of additives in it. One of them is a by-product of the petroleum industry. It's really bad for you."

"...Okay," Jaehwan says after a brief pause. He considers saying, 'you really should loosen up and get fucked up once in a while', but he doesn't want to be rude in case it gets back to Hakyeon.

Eunwoo smiles, of course. "Jaehwan is a bit of a bohemian," he says, and Jaehwan chokes on his spit because that is the nicest possible way anyone could ever describe his trainwreck of an existance.

"I see," Jinwoo says, taking in the toothpaste stains on the sleeve of Jaehwan's hoodie. He's clearly not convinced. Then his eyes shift to Taekwoon, staring from under his hood like a serial killer, which is his default stoned expression. "Well, we should get going."

"Nice to see you again," Eunwoo says, as breezy and cheerful as ever, and lets his friends pull him away. Jaehwan waits until their shining heads disappear into the next aisle before he turns to Taekwoon.

"Do you see what I mean now? Do you fuckin' see what I mean? He's creepy!"

Taekwoon says, "I see why you'd wanna fuck him," and it takes all of Jaehwan's limited self-control not to dump their basket out over his head.


	2. Two

It's half three in the afternoon, and Jaehwan, haunted by visions of perfectly even teeth and a perfectly curved eye smile, has taken himself off somewhere he's sure he won't bump into Eunwoo. He's in the dodgy end of town, where every other window is patched with cardboard and the streets are choked with roadside vendors peddling dodgy electronics and food which reeks in the summer heat.

After making a quick call from his pay-as-you-go phone (Taekwoon thinks he's being paranoid; he likes to think of it as overly cautious, because at some point in his future he wants to clean himself up and have a career, and a past record of arrest for procuring illegal substances can only hamper his chances, not to mention give his mother a whole new arena of things to hold against him) Jaehwan pulls his hoodie up and scoots around the corner, into a dank little alleyway.

It's not glamorous, his life. It's not bohemian, as Eunwoo had so - kindly? mockingly? he's not sure - described it. It's one part frenzy, two parts hedonism, with a good dash of anxiety thrown on top. He loves the rush: the party hours, with their manic lights and his high-speeding heart, feeling like he's just one more acceleration away from losing his wheels entirely. It's like being on a rollercoaster, or on a plane the moment it takes off. The feeling of dancing so close to danger is intoxicating in its own way.

Jaehwan's never articulated this to his friends. He doesn't think they'd believe he has articulated it to himself. With the possible exception of Taekwoon, they think Jaehwan is a dumb partyboy, just out for a good time, never once glancing at a clock or thinking of the future. That's okay, because that's who he is right now. That's who he wants to be. He moved to this town and took a job in a nightclub for this reason: to get the good time he couldn't have growing up.

One day, he knows, he'll ditch the drugs and the booze and the late nights. He'll re-train his voice, and write some new songs, and make his parents proud. But right now he's got friends and good times in an abundance he's never experienced. He's not ready to give that up just yet.

His dealer is lurking near the big bins, stereotypical enough in his appearance to be conspicuous, even though the dark clothes and facemask are supposed to do the exact opposite. His eyes are angry red all around the outer edges. Jaehwan suspects he hasn't slept in a few days. They exchange a few words, and Jaehwan swaps his fistful of bills for a couple of polythene bags about half the size of his palm.

In the dim light, he squints down at his purchase. Decent amount, at least. Usually when the dealer starts getting weird, portions go down, and then they start trying to push you onto other stuff, which they can give you better deals on. Then they make you come to their crash pad to 'sample the goods', and you end up spending hours making small talk with a cracked out hooker and politely declining the pipes they pass to you, until everyone passes out and you escape through the broken bathroom window. That usually means it's time to find a new dealer.

"Thanks man," Jaehwan says, and they fist bump. "Talk next week, yeah?"

"You know where I am, man," the guy says cryptically, and makes an attempt to melt back into the shadows.

The problem with dealers, Jaehwan thinks, is that they get this idea that they're cool outlaw types fighting for freedom, when they're usually unwashed, spindly in the legs and can't focus on one spot for longer than ten seconds. Although that's also a fairly good description of Jaehwan himself.

Whatever. He tucks his purchase into his pocket and heads back out to the main road, where a passing car immediately sweeps dry-hot yellow dust into his eyes. It's while he's trying to coax a stubborn piece of grit out from underneath his contact lens that he hears it: that musical, chiming voice which has been following him around for weeks.

"Oh, hello Jaehwan."

He refuses to believe it until he's got his eyes cleared and turned around, but there he is: Cha Eunwoo, every silky, well finished inch of him, his shining hair hanging a little into his eyes and that glowing smile spread across his face. Except this time there's something different about it, which Jaehwan can't put his finger on until he asks himself what Eunwoo is doing in this part of town, and why the knees of his jeans are muddy.

The perfect smile is trembling at the corners, barely perceptible but there, and his eyes aren't shining from beatific love today, but from something else entirely.

"Hey, dude, are you okay?" Jaehwan says, as carefully as he can. He's got this strange feeling that the smile is the only thing holding Eunwoo together, and that taking it away might cause him to collapse into a pile of porcelain crumbs.

"Just fine, thank you," he says. His voice is definitely pitched higher than usual. "I just - it's so silly, I can't believe I could be such an idiot - I think I took the bus in the wrong direction, and I've found myself here, and - well, I really don't know where here is, so I'm a little confused, but I'm okay, I'll figure things out!"

Eunwoo is clutching his phone hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Jaehwan can see the city mapper app open on the screen, and he can suddenly imagine Eunwoo in the middle of this dusty, choked up road, staring at the map and then back up at the horizon and turning in circles while he tries to get his bearings - and smiling as he does it, because he has to pretend things are going to be alright.

Jaehwan suddenly, without meaning to, sort of gets it. Everyone has their coping mechanisms. Eunwoo's is to stand here, among the decrepit signifiers of poverty, under a merciless sun, alone and afraid, and to keep on smiling. In the same situation, Jaehwan thinks, he'd go for blind luck: pick a path and start walking. Hakyeon would ask the people around for directions. Taekwoon would consult between himself and his phone until he figured things out. Everyone's got their own way of doing things. Jaehwan deals with anxiety and uncomfortable situations by self-medicating, or making stupid jokes, by taking the gravity out of the situation. Eunwoo, he just smiles.

He steps forward and puts his hand on Eunwoo's shoulder. Eunwoo jerks a little, looks at him with his smile showing a little tooth, like he's ready to bite if he needs to. Jaehwan just tries to smile back at him, gently, like how you'd approach a lost little kid.

"Hey, it's alright. I know this area, where're you trying to get back to?"

He walks Eunwoo to the bus stop, keeping up a light, rambling chatter just to keep the mood up. Then, figuring they're heading in sort of the same direction, he gets on the bus with him, because when Jaehwan makes up his mind to do something, he likes to see it through. Eunwoo doesn't say much for the first few minutes. He sits there smiling and politely agreeing with everything Jaehwan says. Jaehwan guesses that he's trying to quiet his internal screaming.

When they're about halfway home, he shakes a little as if he's unfreezing himself, and his smile relaxes again and becomes genuine. And it might actually be the first genuine smile Jaehwan's seen, he realises. The others had all had that slightly frozen quality. That was what made them so unnerving. And then he realises that this whole time Eunwoo's probably been just as afraid of him.

"Thanks," Eunwoo says, and lets out a long, audible hiss of breath. "Thank God you found me. I'm honestly so awful with directions, I probably would have ended up in another city."

"Everyone's got their shit points," Jaehwan says, grinning, and despite the vulgarity Eunwoo actually laughs. "Except Hakyeon, I guess."

  
"Anyway, turns out he's not a serial killer, I guess, just, like, a frightened little puppy - Hakyeon, you gotta be extra nice to him, okay? Make him that fuckin' vegan chocolate cake he likes so much, kid's had a hell of a day. Probably thought he was gonna get kidnapped and like, sold into slavery in Venezuala - "

"Jaehwan," Hakyeon says, with that finely strung note in his voice which always means he wants to laugh, but also tear someone's head clean from their shoulders, and he can't decide which to do first. "Do you ever think about the things coming out of your mouth, or do you just flap your lips and make noises?"

Jaehwan glances back over his shoulder, to the glass door leading into Hakyeon's living room. Eunwoo's in there, lying down on the sofa with the fat kitty resting on his stomach. Jaehwan got him all the way home, and made him some tea without even spilling much of it, and talked to him until he started to wilt, and then he got him onto the sofa for a nap and even draped that ugly floral throw over him, and he doesn't appreciate Hakyeon being snarky when he's tried to be a good person.

"I," he says, assuming a saintly expression which makes Hakyeon snort with laughter, "do not deserve this slander. I am leaving to go home and get very very stoned, and I will see you tomorrow at work after you've heard all about what a great person I am and how much your house mate loves me."

"Saint Jaehwan, saviour of the lost," Hakyeon says, not sounding so sarcastic any more. "Really, thanks for doing this."

"It was a pleasure," he replies, still with his chin in the air. "Anyway, I couldn't carry on hating someone who loves you so much, dude."

That makes Hakyeon pause where he's heading into the living room. "What are you talking about?"

Keeping the saintly expression, Jaehwan clasps his hands under his chin and does his best imitation of Eunwoo's musical voice. "Hakyeon's been so helpful to me, I never would have moved here if not for him, he's such an inspiration to me - "

Jaehwan doesn't miss Hakyeon's pleased little smile before he gets karate-chopped out of the door.


End file.
